


Keep On Walking On

by ProwlingThunder



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Cassian Lives, Crew as Family, Drinking, Drinking for Lost Friends, Found Family, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Raise a Glass for Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 08:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15359925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: He wakes in agony, pain chasing tremors through his back, his ribs, the burn of a blaster bolt.





	Keep On Walking On

**Author's Note:**

> I watched as you took the backseat  
> And left me here for dead  
> I promised you once I'd follow you  
> Wherever that led  
> But now that I'm in this moment  
> Cannot clear my head  
> This time will be the last  
> There's nothing left to give  
> \-- _Walk Again_ \- Brokenrail
> 
> I think this was supposed to be Something Bigger but it's been sitting in my files so long I forgot about it and restumbled over it? It feels like a completed fic to me, so I thought I'd share.

He wakes in agony, pain chasing tremors through his back, his ribs, the burn of a blaster bolt. He knows enough about his own anatomy and injuries to know  _ concussion, _ blurry spots in his vision and hazy darkness around the edges. He should be dead-- but the dead don’t feel pain (he hoped, that’s what he had always been told,  _ the dead don’t hurt anymore, _ and he has to believe that) and pain means he’s still  _ alive. _

The moments it takes him to roll over feel like forever, partly because he doesn’t readily remember where he is ( _ Scarif, _ he thinks after a minute.  _ That’s right.) _ and partly because the support where he has landed is not actually large enough to just  _ roll, _ so he ends up rolling to his side and kind of shuffling back a little until there’s enough room for him to get up. It’s dizzying and nauseating.

(Jyn. Where was Jyn? (She’d climbed on.))

Climbing grinds his bones together. He sets his teeth and finds toeholds anyway. (How long was he out? Too long. Not too long but too long anyway. He can only hope she’s still alive.)

Cassian’s alive.

\--

They don’t exactly release Cassian from medical, but he doesn’t give them much of a choice. A quiet grave is dug in Yavin’s jungles, Jyn’s body laid to rest, and it’s-- mostly just Cas present, honestly. Mon Mothma wants her to have a casket but there is no way for them to  _ get _ one, but she deigns to attend as he lays her down in the ground. In some ways the hole feels too shallow, in others it just feels  _ wrong. _

It feels like he should have buried her on Scarif, in pale beach sand. It feels like he should have buried her on Eadu, with her father. Cassian doesn’t even know if her father has a grave of his own, or if they just threw his body in with the rest of the architects, a mass grave. Maybe he should have buried her on Jedha.

Maybe all their bones should have been given to Jedha. Maybe they hadn’t been supposed to leave there. But Scarif… All of them, or none of them. It was a suicide mission, and all of them had made their peace with that. But the hope Jyn had planted in his breast… that maybe it would work, and they would all come home…

Mon Mothma stays long enough to be respectful and then leaves.

It’s General Draven who stays and helps Cassian bury the body, quiet and somber and respectful and utterly  _ alien. _

There’s no way to process it, so Cassian just doesn’t.

\--

He spends three days drinking, but decidedly not  _ drunk. _ A bottle for each of them; Kay, Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze..

Jyn.

When he comes out of the bottle, it’s to the announcement that the Death Star is destroyed. Or, more precise, it’s to the awareness that Draven has invaded his empty hanger with a Wookie, a Princess, two droids, a hotshot pilot and one grown smuggler who was fooling nobody.

Cas was far too drunk to throw a bottle of good booze at them, so he offered a toast instead.


End file.
